SEE: Yet-to-be-married couples flogged in Indonesia for violating Sharia by going on date

Photos have emerged on social media showing couples being brutally flogged for violating Sharia law in Indonesia's Aceh province.

The story behind the photos is that the yet-to-be-married couples violated the Sharia law by going on dates and were thus punished at the Al Furqon Mosque in the city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

In the photos, while one of the women is seen crying as a hooded man metes out lashings with a rattan (bamboo) cane on a stage next to the mosque in front of a large, cheering crowd, a man is seen standing as he receives the same brutal punishment.

The province has been under Sharia law since 2001 when a Special Autonomy Law was passed to regulate Sharia in an effort by the central government in Jakarta to stifle a long-running separatist insurgency.